Posts Tagged ‘Carnival of Genealogy’

The topic for the 60th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is Alzheimer’s Disease. November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month and it’s a good time to reflect on the impact that Alzheimer’s Disease (dementia) has had on your family history. An estimated 5 million people in the U.S. are living with Alzheimer’s Disease. A new case is diagnosed every 72 seconds. Undoubtedly someone you know will or has some form of this debilitating dementia. Alzheimer’s robs people of their memories and all that they could have passed on in the way of family history. What does that mean to you? If you are fortunate enough to have not been effected by Alzheimer’s Disease in your family, perhaps you will share the impact of another serious medical condition that has impacted your family. How have you gone about researching your family’s medical history?

Luckily, my family has been left untouched by this horrible illness that wipes out a person’s memory and leaves them debilitated and the family struggling to cope. My mother used to work for one of her local Senior Day Centers as a grant writer as well as being there to help the Seniors. During the day most of the people who were there were “dropped off” just as you would a child at a day care facility. These people were mostly living with family members who needed extra eyes on their parents/aging family members while they were at work. Because of Mom’s time working with some of these people afflicted with this progressive illness, she takes offense when someone who forgets where their car keys are says offhandedly “maybe I’ve got Alzheimer’s.” She’s seen what this disease can do and knows it is not humorous.

Our family has had it’s share of “Senior Moments” – heck, I’m not even 50, and I get them. I tend to call it the “busyness syndrome”. So busy in my daily life and thinking of too many things at once, that half the time I don’t remember what I’ve already related to people. So now when I begin a story, I always ask if I’ve said this before. What is worse is when I’ve neglected to tell someone the health condition, etc. of a relative and been called on it. I forget where the _____________ (insert anything) is but that’s just because I’m not as organized as I should be, and I’ve allowed myself to have too many cluttered thoughts and not care.

I’ve also been pretty lucky in learning about our family medical history. I have death certificates and oral histories about illnesses to know what I am predisposed to genetically. No epilepsy, no bleeding or autoimmune disorders. I do think it’s very sad for a person who has been adopted and can’t find that medical information. I think if anything else, medical history should be part of open records – even if the biological birth information is not. I also believe that the doctor’s office is not the place NOT to divulge information that could be crucial for your physician in making a diagnosis or researching other alternatives. If we can’t be a partner in our own medical care, who else will advocate for us?

My hope is that a cure can be found to slow or stop Alzheimer’s altogether. A friend of the family’s has a parent with Alzheimer’s. This person spends a lot of time each day visiting their parent and using a “script” as the memory of the person. Repetitiveness can be monotonous, however, I’ve witnessed the parent recall something that wasn’t said that same day and that gives us great joy to hear. I’ve also witnessed the slow decline of this friend’s parent and my heart hurts for this family as they watch their parent deteriorate. I consider myself, my parents, and my grandparents very lucky that we didn’t have to live with this disease but unfortunately not everyone is so lucky.

That is why it is so important – from a family history and genealogy stand point – to gather this information before the disease progresses – or before there are even any signs of it. If your parents are still fairly young and your grandparents are still living and have their memories, now is the time to gather that information before it is lost to either Alzheimer’s, other medical issues, or they are gone.

The topic for the 59th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: “Politics and Our Ancestors” in honor of Voting Day. As I thought about this, I knew that I had several ancestors and collateral family members who had served in politics as well as members who were quite vocal in their political affiliations.

My paternal great-grandfather’s brother, George Washington Amore, was a Democrat and served as an Assessor for Linton Township in Coshocton County for three terms in the 1890’s. In 1909 he ran for Mayor of Plainfield, Ohio. George’s son-in-law, John D. Woodward, a respected man of Coshocton County, pledged his allegiance to the Democratic party, but held no public office. (Source information from “History of Coshocton County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, 1740-1881″. Compiled by N.N. Hill, Jr.; Newark, Ohio; A.A. Graham & Co., Publishers; 1881; Carlon & Hollenbeck, Printers & Binders, Indianapolis, Ind.)

My great-aunt (Louisa Clementine Amore Baker) was married to Benjamin Baker who was a Justice of the Peace in Coshocton, Ohio before 1919. (Source information from his obituary published in “The Coshocton Tribune”, Coshocton, Ohio, Page 8, May 21, 1936)

My maternal grandfather, Glen Roy Johnson, Sr., was elected to the Fairfield (now a part of Fairborn), Greene County, Council in 1936 and was instrumental in getting a sewage plant builtHe was a Democrat in his younger years and in his later life affiliated with the Republican party. He met Richard Nixon about 1972-1973 when he was in Washington D.C. and toured the White House. (Source information – personal knowledge)

My first cousin, four times removed, John Goul (son of Christian and Ruth Lawson Goul, grandson of my 4th great-grandfather), first vote was cast for John Charles Fremont – the first candidate of the Republican party – who ran against James Buchanan. John also voted twice for President Lincoln and although he was sought after to run for office in his locale, he refused to have his name put up for any political office. John’s father, Christian Goul, was a Whig until the formation of the Republican party and then became a life-long Republican. (Source information from “Beers History of Champaign County, Ohio”)

My 2nd cousin, 3 times removed, George Lewis House, served on the Deshler, Ohio city council and the school board before 1906. His political affiliation is unknown. (Source information: Jeromey Ward)

My 9th great-grandfather, Richard Treat (d. 1669), represented the settlement of Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut in the first general court in 1637; was a Colonial grand juror in 1643; elected to the general court in 1644 (and was re-elected many times); and was an Assistant Magistrate of the Colony from 1658-1665. (Source information from “The Hollister Family in America”. Compiled by Lafayette Wallace Case M.D.; Chicago, Fergus Printing Company; 1886).

My maternal grandmother, Vesta Christena Wilt Johnson, was born prior to the passage of the 20th Amendment. She voted in almost every election after that. My parents have both voted Democratic most of their lives.

When I was in 6th grade and Richard Nixon was running for his second term in office, I pasted Nixon/Agnew stickers on my bedroom door so my mom had to see them each time she walked by. So when Nixon won over McGovern, I teased her mercilessly. Needless to say, during the Watergate scandal, she had the last laugh over me. I have voted both Democratic and Republican since I turned 18 and don’t consider myself affiliated with either party. I am a proponent of voter rights and urge others to vote in order to have a voice in the future of our great nation. I thoroughly believe that our forefathers and foremothers fought long and hard – either on the battlefield, in elected offices and as Suffragettes – in order to give us that right. It should not be something we turn our nose up and deny because apathy solves nothing. To be part of the solution, I believe – as so many of my ancestors – that we must all be active in the future of our community, our school, our city, our state, and our national government – either by voting or running for office in order to affect the change we look toward.

Event: While looking for an ancestor’s grave, the day suddenly turned cool and shadows were splayed over the headstones. The feeling was that the area was “haunted.”

True or False?

UPDATE: This post is TRUE – although I reported it second-hand! When my cousin, Billy, went to Orange Grove Cemetery (also known as Richmond Cemetery) in Coshocton County to take pictures of Frances (Price) Amore’s gravestone (she was the first wife of my 2nd gr-grandfather, William Amore), he said the cemetery was very spooky. The town close to the cemetery hasn’t seen much activity for almost 100 years. He said it became quite eery and chilly on a warm day and didn’t spend too long lingering.

Jasia, at Creative Gene has posted the Carnival of Genealogy, 57th Edition on the theme: I Read it in the News! I haven’t counted the number of submissions but there are quite a few! I think there are a few who have submitted a post for the first time on a CoG!

So scoot on over there and “read all about it”! Try to leave comments on the ones you read!

This post is written for the 57th Carnival of Genealogy on the theme: I read it in the news!

Our family has always been big on cutting out newspaper articles that relates to anything having to do with someone in the family. I’ve located small clips on people who have applied for marriage licenses, obituaries, and even larger articles. As I began my genealogy quest almost 10 years ago, I once again perused some scrapbooks at my mom’s house. I found the following clipping:

I knew that my parents, my brother and my sister all learned to fly when my dad was stationed in Japan, but I didn’t realize they had been in a movie! Even if it was for the Aero Club of which they were members. They flew quite a bit while in Japan and continued once back in the states. My parents took me up once (that I remember) as a young child, but I wasn’t a very good airplane passenger. I passed out once in the air and woke up in the car on the way home. I do much better in commercial airlines.

Another news article my mom clipped and mailed to my grandparents contained information about Japan “Asthma”. Mom suffered from this while they were overseas and it was hard to explain what it was so she sent this news article.

I also found my grandparents’ wedding announcement which I think is a pretty good treasure since they were married in 1916 in a small town in Indiana.

I also have been blessed that many of my relatives and distant cousins have shared news articles with me – either a scanned copy or a regular copy. I also feel very lucky that many of these articles have survived over time – especially with standing moves across oceans and across country not to mention just across town.

On Saturday morning we went to the local computer/electronics/appliance store to find a new printer. Ours is maybe 10 years old (I don’t even remember when we bought it!). As my husband pointed out this is our 3rd printer since we’ve been married – 20 years – which isn’t bad in the grand scheme of things. Of course our first printer was a dot matrix – remember the perforated lines on each side that you had to tear once your document printed out? And it was only black ink. I’ve had the Epson Stylus 880i and really like it (still do even if it is putting great big inky marks all over the page!). So I told the rep trying to interest me in another big name printer that I was partial to Epson. I did find an all-in-one (no fax though as we really don’t need that). Bought some extra ink and then home to hook it up and install the software for it.

I used the scanner on Saturday and Sunday and it is quite fast. I won’t get rid of our flatbed scanner becaues it has a slide and negative attachment. Since I still have oodles of slides to scan, it will still come in handy. Plus it is larger than the new all-in-one and I can scan my scrapbook pages on it as well.

I’ve also added some more records to Find-a-grave and a member tree on Ancestry (even though I’m not a paying subscriber, I was invited in to this member tree). I just figure that the more information I flood the web with, the easier it will be for people who are looking for mutual ancestors to find me.

Also, for so long I’ve kept my maternal and paternal lines on separate gedcom files (don’t ask why I even did that!) so this weekend I merged everything into one big happy family file. Oh the joy – oh the headache – now I have to merge all those duplicated individuals and then go back and fix family relationships. Why am I doing this again?

In between all of that, I have real life issues – I have family in the Southwestern area of Ohio (around Dayton) and they’ve been without power since Sunday afternoon. I haven’t been able to contact my mom – who has an electric phone (?!?!) but have talked with her neighbor and received an email from my cousin. So I’ve been a little freaked out about what’s been going on up there. Apparently Ike whipped around us here in North Texas and headed straight for the midwest. You can read about the damage here. Good thoughts and wishes please!

This is my submission for the 56th Carnival of Genealogy being hosted by Lori Thornton at Smoky Mountain Family Historian. The topic is 10 essential books in my genealogy library.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to buy a lot of the books I really should. Some I’ve checked (& re-checked) out of the local library. Others I’ve been able to find on Google Books. So without further ado:

2. The Genealogy of the Loveland Family in the United States of America from 1635 to 1892. By J.B. Loveland, Fremont, O., and George Loveland, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Vol. 1; Freemont, Ohio; I.M. Keeler and Son, printers; 1892.

3. The Risley Family History. By Edwin H. Risley of Utica, N.Y.; The Grafton Press; Genealogical Publishers; New York; MCMIX; Copyright 1909 by Edwin H. Risley.